V Max One…A Future Reflecting Today

I, Dalton Lewis, published my space opera V Max One yesterday. In it I included a difficult situation: the hatred of adult men who fail to make it in life. These are the rioters because of cop misconduct, but these are also the people who shoot up corporate offices or schools. Why? I know that so many men are angry and afraid and hurting. The top few people make it in life and have big homes and skinny wives and children and careers. The rest of us? We are stuck bagging groceries and living with our parents, and that isn’t the life that we wanted for ourselves.

I wanted to create a universe with a group of villains who are angry at something real and tangible and substantial, and this was it. People had criticized me early in my career for having villains who were cartoonishly evil instead of wonderful people who were troubled, and I feel that I fixed that with this one. The villain in this piece is so troubled, so unhappy, and so amazing that I root for him to do well. That’s what we want, right? A villain we can sort of root for?

The Masked Brigade was born. I tried to include some passages about them being mistreated. These are some of the best passages from the book. Bull Mask, in the novel, finishes college and is screamed at for being in the room with a naked woman — in his home. He has trouble keeping a job. He tries to apply for corporate jobs and gets fired for telling the truth about a product that doesn’t work. He gets into a fight when someone embarrasses and humiliates him at a job interview and ends up in prison. When he leaves prison he is broken, sitting around with a tiny apartment and a card table. He has nothing; he is nothing; his prospects are minimal.

I wanted the protagonist, Ares Morgan, to have some of that as well. People mistreat him because he has a mental illness. A breakdown happens right before the novel starts. He has trouble handling his life and his adult responsibilities. Victoria from V Max One shows up with an offer — get hospitalization from V Max One or die. He chooses to go to the hospital to get treatment.

I based some of this on the real world. I know so many guys who are single and so few happy couples. Finnegan is happy in his second marriage, and Terry is happy in his third marriage. Other than that I have a lot of single friends — and a few trying relationships that may or may not last. Me? I haven’t had a relationship in ten years, but I don’t really want one. I want to focus on making it as a writer instead of trying for a family when I can’t do my part to support said family.

Why are men so angry now? Why are there so many school shootings and mass murders at places of work? Why do men try to shoot as many people as possible from a Las Vegas hotel room? Why do men give up on doing the right thing?

The system is broken. The top people get almost everything, and the rest of us get almost nothing. What happens for that guy who’s # 18 in US Horror Novels sales listing for Impressions of Suburbia? Nothing. Nothing happens for him except death at the end of a long and tedious life. Work, career — they lead to nothing, maybe a nothing job at a warehouse or at a supermarket. I’ve done those jobs. They don’t lead to corporate chances. I don’t have those.

What do we do about this? I don’t know. I don’t have any answers. Reality is a competition, and the people at the bottom of that competition don’t do well. I don’t do well. I can just try my hardest to get higher towards the top. That’s all I can do.

Thanks, and take care, friends.